Dept of Homeland Security Comm Systems Re: [FedCom] Homeland Sec Units

[ken windyka]

Hello group!!!

I'm sure that most of you are already hearing most of the fed going to
encryption/digital type radio systems.  I would assume that the new
department will probably budget for these type of radio comm sytems.  I
think that on one of the talk shows/nightly newcasts, there was an
interview with one of the members of the comission that had been formed to
look at terrorism in the US & even one of the members mentioned that a lack
of a common communications system was a strong commission concern.

Perhaps initially what will be done will be cross band type repeater
systems and/or the ability for certain areas to enable select cross band
operations...     Also there's a fairly large presence of government NEXTEL
users as well as the use of other digital cellular/pcs systems.......
Law enforcement agencies that only have in the clear radio systems and/or
are experiencing encryption problems usually go to the digital cellluar/pcs
systems and/or mobile data terminals for backup....  I think there's going
to be a definite move to inhibit hobbyists from monitoring this federal
department via various technical measures available!!

Also there's a distinct difference between surveillance and response.
Covert Surveilliance IMHO is actually best carried out by using
cellular/pcs portables rather than radio equipment because one wouldn't
stand out in a crowd or in a vehicle if one were using it, nor would there
be any encryption signals that might be a tip off to those under
surveillance!!!!   Response on the other hand probably doesn't require even
encryption because at that time it's too late.  Also if it's a medical
(DMATS) response to a weapons of mass destruction/other explosive incident,
than everyone already knows what happened so encryption probably isn't
going to be needed.

Hopefully, before they buy any new radio equipment/systems they do a test
to make sure it will work for them.  At least with the old systems (VHF/UHF
analog) they already know what the limitations of the systems are........

Ken Windyka
Springfield MA Monitoring Area         

At 07:52 AM 6/8/02 EDT, JohnMNash@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 6/7/02 10:38:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
rj_721@yahoo.com 
>writes:
>Sorry Folks:
>
>The Office of Homeland Security right now is a small policy office in 
>Washington, D.C. and doesn't have any operational units-hence no need for 
>radio frequencies.  This will change as the formation into a new Department 
>of Homeland Security occurs.